Social distancing extended

April 21, 2020

Chief Executive Carrie Lam:

I have come to this view, together with the advice of the experts and my colleagues that for the time being, the better balance to be struck and a safer approach to ensure all the successes that Hong Kong has achieved over the last three months will not be wasted, is to extend these social distancing measures for another 14 days, which will take us to the first week in May. And of course meanwhile, we will closely monitor the situation.

The reason why we could more readily take this position as far as impact on businesses is concerned, is because we will immediately roll out those measures approved by the Legislative Council Finance Committee last Saturday. For example, you will have heard about a 100% loan guarantee scheme, which has started to receive applications yesterday. I was told that 300 applications have been received by the banks and 10 have already been approved by the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation. So we are using that sort of speed to help the businesses to stay afloat, while they will have to tolerate the impact of these social distancing measures.

(To watch the full media session with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Chief Executive Carrie Lam today announced that social distancing measures will be extended for 14 days.

Ahead of the Executive Council meeting, Mrs Lam told reporters that even though there were no new COVID-19 cases recorded yesterday, this was not the time to relax the measures.

“I have come to this view, together with the advice of the experts and my colleagues that for the time being, the better balance to be struck and a safer approach to ensure all the successes that Hong Kong has achieved over the last three months will not be wasted, is to extend these social distancing measures for another 14 days, which will take us to the first week in May.”

Mrs Lam said the Government would continue to closely monitor the situation and roll out the relief schemes under the second round of the Anti-epidemic Fund to assist the business sector and those affected by the social distancing measures.

“The reason why we could more readily take this position as far as impact on businesses is concerned, is because we will immediately roll out those measures approved by the Legislative Council Finance Committee last Saturday.

“For example, you will have heard about a 100% loan guarantee scheme, which has started to receive applications yesterday. I was told that 300 applications have been received by the banks and 10 have already been approved by the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation.

“So we are using that sort of speed to help the businesses to stay afloat, while they will have to tolerate the impact of these social distancing measures.”